<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Save a Sinner by aslaug</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715025">Save a Sinner</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aslaug/pseuds/aslaug'>aslaug</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Stjernestøv [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>God of War (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Gen, Happy Ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 15:48:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,436</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715025</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aslaug/pseuds/aslaug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Baldur pretends until he doesn't have to anymore.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Stjernestøv [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2060637</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Save a Sinner</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Fluff? In my God of War? Get out, me!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Baldur is happy before he feels it. He can't say it's authentic because he can't say what happiness feels like; he knows what it <em>is</em> like, for him. When he had been denied everything else, he knew he had to find bliss, or resemblance of it, elsewhere. Whatever worked would be enough. But the thing is, Baldur thinks bitterly as he's threading one mountain carcass after the other - fearless, because there's no fear in his world - the damned thing is that nothing worked. No matter how high he climbs, the fall down is always the same. He takes a step forward and just waits it out until his feet are pressed against the ground again.</p><p>Again</p><p>And again.<br/>
And a—</p><p>Boring.</p><p>Baldur finds his happiness in hope. He can't die but he is not alive either; he's a shadow shattering in the dusk only to be pieced back together with a morning ray of sunshine: an immaculate statue, polished and indestructible, that has his face but was erected against his will.</p><p>So he starts imagining.</p><p>He pretends he has dreams. As if they come to him at night, when he pretends to be asleep, a habit he took up to so long ago he doesn't even remember. It almost works. In his dreams, he pretends he sees Mother. She wraps herself around him, and he imagines that's what a blanket of furs would have felt like on his shoulders if only she—</p><p>In his made up dreams, the warm blanket of her arms tightens around his body, around his face and neck, suffocating him, squeezing life out of him. <em>I do it all for you</em>, he hears Mother say, <em>Because I love you, I do it all for you.</em></p><p>He always dies in these dreams and he pretends he knows what it's like.</p><p>He pretends he can almost feel it. He pretends and pretends and pretends until he's so full of it he wants to burst open, he wants to bleed dry, but in the end he never knows how.</p><p>Baldur finds bliss in pursuit of it. Hope of finding a cure keeps him going. He makes the world around him bleed instead, walking over countless bodies of men and women, all dead. And he envies them, still. He knows envy, of all things; longing for what he can't have has always come to him naturally.</p><p>He knows envy, he learnt of hope, and then there was resentment. For everything Mother took away from him in her twisted, motherly, <em>caring</em> way.</p><p>Baldur finds happiness in the idea of vengeance.</p><p>But when a little arrow notch pierces his hand - so easy to overlook, small and absolutely insignificant - he <em>feels</em> before he knows it. For the first time in the dull eternity of nothingness he feels it all. He's taken aback by it, he's washed over, he's freezing and burning all at the same time. Lying under Kratos, he tilts his head to the side and laughs. Snow. This is what snow feels like against his bare back, against his sweaty palms, against his countless wounds. Kratos' hands on his body are big and heavy, his skin thick and rough like Baldur imagines unpolished marble would feel. Baldur laughs and laughs until the sound becomes something he doesn't immediately recognise. He lifts his hands to his face and rubs, smears wet stains all over his face. He doesn't find a name for what it tastes like, and he doesn't understand why Kratos lets go of him.</p><p>"My boy," Mother collapses next to him as soon as Kratos moves aside, wraps herself around his body just like in his dreams, and it does feel warm and nice and he doesn't die in the end.</p><p>At least not yet.</p><p>Kratos is still there, towering over him like a promise of unavoidable demise, with only Mother layering herself between them.</p><p>"No," he hears the kid saying. "He's beaten."</p><p>And so he is. Defeated and broken and <em>tired</em>. Resentful and hating and hopeful, still. He opens his eyes and looks up. He can't manage a word because it's like the sky is crashing down on his chest, and Baldur thinks that this is what life can be now: bright and limitless. Mother is weeping quietly on his chest, and he knows he can't forgive her. He knows what must be done. But he also feels the snow burning under his back and tears streaming down his temples, disappearing somewhere in his ears, his hair. He feels hot blinding pain radiating through every single spot where the kid's arrows went through, every single cut from Kratos' axe, every single bruise blossoming on his body.</p><p><em>Ecstatic</em>.</p><p>Baldur isn't stupid. He knows that if he does what must be done, Kratos won't let him go. He's stronger, it doesn't even sting to admit; he'll take away everything Mother had already taken away once, now that Baldur has it all back. But unlike Mother, Kratos will take it all and more. For good this time, with no cure and no hope.</p><p>Baldur knows he can't forgive her but he also knows that he can pretend until he will.</p><p>He puts his hand on her back, feels her little shivers under his touch and weeps with her.</p><p>Somewhere in the distance he hears boat's oars creaking away.</p><p>-</p><p>Baldur doesn't know where to start so he does a million things at once. He refuses to let Mother heal him with magic. He goes through the entire process like a mortal would. He feels his wounds prickling under the layers of poultice and bandages, washing it down with strong spirits. He goes for a swim and ice-cold water cuts his skin like knives. He dives deep and resurfaces with a loud gasp, taking in fresh air in his lungs until his head starts spinning. He drinks mead and ale and dozens of sorts of wine until he gets absolutely irreversibly drunk and vomits on the table in Mother's dining corner. He takes a girl to bed, and when she's on top of him he can't help but think how soft and supple she is everywhere compared to Kratos' firm unyielding marble hands on his skin - the first touch he ever felt. He tattooes a small clumsy mistletoe flower on the back of his hand, right on top of his old blue pattern. The ink flows through the needle under his skin and fills him with too many feelings to handle at once.</p><p>And he's learning to handle them, because sometimes it can be too much to endure.</p><p>Sometimes he can't quite put a finger on what it is that he feels.</p><p>Like those times when Baldur finds himself on top of a hill, gazing over a tiny old shack that he had almost destroyed once. Sometimes he sees father and son sparring outside, sometimes he sees son target practicing with his tiny bow. Sometimes he sees father alone, staring back at him with warning, or maybe with challenge.</p><p>Baldur doesn't know what it is that he comes looking for. He doesn't have to chase them anymore. There's nothing for him there. And yet there's something swelling in his chest, forcing him to make his way to the place where he knows he is not welcome. He can never think of a reason to remain and he always leaves, wishing the urge to come back wouldn't trouble him again and again.</p><p>Mother keeps asking him where he disappears so often come evening, and he never tells her. He is certain that she will have answers to his questions, but he's not ready to know them yet.</p><p>-</p><p>Baldur learns eventually that not every feeling is welcome, and those that are not, often have to do with him making his way back to the shack and lingering there like a cruel misshaped shadow of his past doings.</p><p>And of course, Mother knows. Of course, she follows him, a bird too unremarkable looking to notice. Of course, she takes him home, sits him down and starts talking. Baldur is surprised to find himself listening. She tells him about remorse, says that it's what makes him better than his father, his brothers and all the world combined; she holds his hand the whole time.</p><p>Baldur squeezes it back.</p><p>The next evening he stays home, watching Mother work in her garden through the window that, for once, shows outside as it really is. He knows that she knows that he's watching and he doesn't look away.</p><p>Baldur thinks, for the first time in eternity, that he doesn't have to pretend anymore.</p><p>And it feels good.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>